Flip Game
A easy-tier problem at 65% community acceptance, tagged with String. Reported in interviews at Google and 0 others.
Flip Game is a deceptively simple string problem that Google has asked, but it catches candidates who overthink it or miss the core constraint. You're given a string and need to find all positions where you can flip two consecutive characters. The acceptance rate sits at 65%, which means a quarter of test-takers either timeout on an inefficient solution or get the logic wrong. It's the kind of problem where the trick isn't algorithmic complexity, it's reading the prompt carefully and implementing the straightforward approach without second-guessing yourself. If this lands in your live assessment and you blank on what "flipping" means, StealthCoder surfaces a working solution in seconds while the proctor sees nothing.
Companies that ask "Flip Game"
Flip Game is the kind of problem that decides whether you pass. StealthCoder reads the problem on screen and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Invisible to screen share. The proctor sees nothing. Built by an engineer who got tired of watching his cohort grind for six months and still get filtered at the OA stage.
Get StealthCoderThe trap is expecting some clever bit manipulation or dynamic programming when the solution is a single linear pass. You iterate through the string, and whenever you find two consecutive characters that are the same, you mark that position as a valid flip point (or add it to your result list). The obvious O(n) scan is the right approach. Common mistakes: candidates try to actually flip and check downstream effects, or they misread the problem as requiring transformation of the string itself rather than just reporting valid flip indices. Since it's marked as Easy, Google is testing whether you can read a constraint, implement a loop, and ship clean code under pressure. If the problem hits your OA and you start designing a state machine, StealthCoder grounds you back to the simple pass-through that works.
Pattern tags
You know the problem.
Make sure you actually pass it.
Flip Game recycles across companies for a reason. It's easy-tier, and most candidates blank under the timer. StealthCoder is the hedge: an AI overlay invisible during screen share. It reads the problem and surfaces a working solution in under 2 seconds. Built by an engineer who got tired of watching his cohort grind for six months and still get filtered at the OA stage. Works on HackerRank, CodeSignal, CoderPad, and Karat.
Flip Game interview FAQ
Why is the acceptance rate only 65% if this is Easy?+
Candidates either misread the prompt (thinking they need to return a transformed string), overcomplicate the solution, or use inefficient nested loops instead of a single pass. The problem itself is straightforward, but test conditions and precision matter. Read the spec twice before coding.
Does Google still ask Flip Game in their assessments?+
Yes, it's in their reported problem set. Easy-tier string problems like this one often appear in early rounds or as a warm-up. It's not a gatekeeping question, but flubbing it signals carelessness, which costs you in later, harder problems.
What's the trick to solving this correctly?+
There is no trick. Read the problem statement carefully, understand that you're finding positions (not transforming), then write a single loop that checks each adjacent pair. The trick is not overthinking. Code it in two minutes and move on.
Is String the only topic I need to know for this?+
Yes. No advanced data structures, no graph theory, no dynamic programming. Just string indexing and iteration. If you can loop through a string and compare characters, you can solve this. Nail the fundamentals.
What happens if I use a nested loop approach?+
It'll still pass on small test cases, but it's O(n^2) and wastes time you don't have in a live OA. A single pass is O(n) and takes seconds to write. In a timed assessment, clarity and speed matter more than showing off complexity you don't need.
Want the actual problem statement? View "Flip Game" on LeetCode →